


the snow in the moonlight

by emjee (MerryHeart)



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (TV 2016)
Genre: College AU, F/M, snowed in/mutual pining/ONLY ONE BED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11679963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryHeart/pseuds/emjee
Summary: “I’m…I’m affectionate, Pierre. I’m nearly dying to—I’m just a bit touch-starved is all, I’m sorry, Sonya could explain it, poor thing, I hold on to her all the time. When I say I don’t mind if you’re close, what I mean is that…I’d like it that way. If you would.”Snowed in + mutual pining + only one bed. College AU.





	the snow in the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theparadigmshifts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theparadigmshifts/gifts).



 

Natasha glanced at the clock on Pierre’s desk for the first time in, apparently, hours. “Is that the time?”

Pierre’s head jerked up from his book. It was half past midnight.

“I’m so sorry,” Natasha said, gathering her things. “I didn’t mean to keep you up this late.”

“You didn’t—I mean—don’t worry, please don’t,” Pierre replied. “It’s fine.”

“Still. I should let you get to sleep.”

 _Ha,_ thought Pierre _. Sleep. After an evening this close to you. Not likely._

She’d been in his room for hours, immersed in books about Russian composers as she researched a paper for her music history class. She’d climbed up onto Pierre’s bed at his insistence, while he occupied the desk, theoretically reading a history of the Napoleonic wars when in actuality he was looking at Natasha whenever he was reasonably certain she wouldn’t catch him.

He half-hoped his blanket smelled like her now, then mentally kicked himself for such a strange thought.

She slid off the bed, zipping up her bookbag and sliding her feet into her heavy winter boots. Pierre handed her her coat.

“Let me walk you home?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Natasha, giving him a smile as he reached for the door handle.

 _Ask her_ , he thought, _ask if you can kiss her. Just ask her, Bezukhov._

“Pierre?”

“Hm?”

“Is there something wrong with the door?”

 _Dammit_.

“No, sorry.” He tugged it open and followed her out.

“Maybe we can study again tomorrow?” she asked as they headed down the stairs. “I always seem to get more done around you.”

“Absolutely. Yeah. Just text me.”

They stopped at the bottom of the stairway, neither one moving to get the door.

Natasha bounced ever so slightly on the balls of her feet. Pierre thought she might be holding her breath. Was she waiting for something? _Ask. Her._

“Well,” she sighed, “once more unto the breach.”

They emerged from the stairwell ready to head straight out the front doors and brave the bitter chill, but instead they were confronted with—

“Is that _snow_?” Natasha cried.

“Yup,” drawled the RA behind the desk. “Classes are already canceled for tomorrow, e-mail went out an hour ago. We got an unlucky drift. No one’s getting in or out of that door for a few hours at least.”

“Fire marshal’s not gonna be happy about that, Vaska,” said Pierre.

“Fire marshal can calm himself,” Vaska Denisov replied, kicking his feet up. “The fire escapes are still functional, but those are emergencies only. Is your raucous Thursday night—excuse me, Friday morning—ruined?”

“No,” said Natasha, “it’s only—I don’t live here.”

Vaska leaned forward. “Oh, you’re Nikolai Rostov’s sister.”

“Yes.”

“He texted me asking about you.”

“Shit,” said Natasha, slinging her backpack off her shoulder. “I haven’t looked at my phone in hours.”

“He’s snowed in over at Hill House,” Vaska continued, “which means things are probably about to get interesting with Marya.”

“Vaska,” said Pierre, a warning tone in his voice. Timid, religious Marya Bolkonskaya was a dear friend, and when her name came up on conversation it was usually as the object of ridicule.

“Well, never mind that,” Vaska said. “I’ll tell him you’re safe and warm, Natasha. You’ve got someone to crash with here, I assume?”

Natasha glanced at Pierre. “Yes, I—thank you, I’ll be fine. I’ll text Nikolai myself.”

Pierre lived on the top floor of Alexander House, which meant that the view from his window was beautiful and the hike up the staircase was a pain. Natasha suggested taking the elevator back up so that she could text her brother and Sonya, and Pierre was only too happy to oblige.

When they returned to his room, Pierre opened the window shade and peered down at the alley below. Snow was still coming down, the wind driving it in waves across the streetlights.

Natasha tossed her backpack into a corner and unzipped her coat, hanging it on a hook by the door.

“This is…unexpected,” she ventured.

Pierre turned away from the window and rubbed the back of his neck. “It is, but, um, I mean at least there’s no class tomorrow?”

Natasha’s face lit up. “Exactly! Oh, I love snow days. They’re for fuzzy slippers and staying your pajamas and baking cookies and not worrying about your analytical techniques final!”

Pierre’s nervousness began to subside in the face of Natasha’s excitement. He felt a smile spreading across his face to mirror hers. “I’ve got an extra toothbrush,” he offered, ducking into the bathroom to locate it.

“Thanks. I can sleep in my leggings, but this dress…” She picked at her cozy, cowl-necked sweater dress. More than once Pierre had imagined snuggling close to her, burying his face against her neck, into that soft blue wool. “Can I borrow a t-shirt?”

“Oh, sure,” he called from behind the bathroom door. “Bottom drawer, pick whatever you want.” She was so much smaller than he was; that t-shirt would likely be as long on her as her dress.

“Stay in there a second while I change?”

“Okay.”

When Natasha gave the all-clear, Pierre emerged to find her in his well-worn “I drink and I know things” shirt. _Damn it._ He’d thought she couldn’t possibly get any more attractive, and then she’d started wearing his clothing.

“This is the most aggressively Pierre Bezukhov article of clothing I have ever seen,” she said by way of explanation.

“Shall we switch?” she asked. “I’ll brush my teeth, you change out here?”

He nodded wordlessly.

 

Natasha closed the bathroom door and stared at herself in the mirror.

The t-shirt smelled like Pierre.

He would be lucky if he ever got it back.

She couldn’t even remember how it had happened, how a year ago she had been sobbing over Anatole, over Andrei, how she had drunk herself into oblivion, how Pierre was the only person who could make her want to wake up the next day—no, not even Sonya, because Sonya didn’t know what it was like, to go to sleep and to half-hope that you would just drift into that comfortable nothingness forever.

Pierre knew. And then he was gone for a semester and then he was back, and now he was here.

And she loved him.

She couldn’t remember how it had happened, but it had.

And what about _him_ , she asked herself as she brushed her teeth. Could he possibly? He seemed bashful, uncertain, and in anyone else that might be a sure sign, but there was always an undercurrent of embarrassment with Pierre.

And now to be—not _spending the night_ , not like she had with Anatole, but…to be sleeping over. To be sleeping next to, beside, the one person she wanted more than she knew what to do with…

She twisted her hair into a braid and shouted through the door to ask Pierre if he was decent. When he replied that he was, she emerged from the bathroom, trying to keep her blushing at bay by mere force of will.

Pierre was kneeling on the rug, spreading out a blanket.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up at her. “Oh, I—I didn’t think you would want—I was going to sleep on the floor, it’s fine, I promise. Really, it’s fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Natasha, putting her hands on her hips in a manner Pierre found simultaneously adorable and formidable. “This is _your_ room. You should sleep on the bed.”

“You’re a guest, Natasha,” he argued. “You’re not taking the floor.”

“Well, neither are you. And if you insist on it, I will personally dig through that drift and march my way back to Moscow House.”

Pierre sighed. “Somehow I don’t doubt that you would. But we can’t both sleep in the bed.”

“Why not?”

He blinked. “Tasha…I didn’t—I mean—Natasha, I take up most of the bed.”

“I’m small,” she shrugged. “Pierre, listen, if it will make you uncomfortable, if you really don’t want to…” She spoke quickly, her voice calm and low. “If you really don’t want to, then of course I’ll…it’s not…it won’t bother me. That’s all I wanted to say.”

Pierre sat back on his heels. “It won’t?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.”

Pierre sighed again, stood, and shook out the blanket before returning it to the bed. “How about this—I run hot, generally, so how about I sleep on top of the sheets, under the blanket, and you can sleep under the sheets and the rest of the covers?”

Natasha smiled. “Perfect.”

 

Five minutes later the lights were out and both of them were beneath their respective layers.

Natasha lay facing the window. “Pierre?”

“Hm?”

“You don’t have to press yourself flat against the wall.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

He heard her giggle in the darkness. “You don’t have to apologize. I just didn’t think it would be very comfortable. Take up as much of the bed as you like.”

“I don’t want to push you off.”

“Put an arm around my waist, then.”

“What?” This hadn’t been how he’d imagined his own death, true, but Pierre was becoming more and more certain that sharing a bed with Natalya Rostova was going to kill him.

He felt the mattress move as Natasha rolled over to face him. “Pierre…” she began. She was trying to find the words for something. He loved that about Natasha—she was always trying to find the right words, even if they came out jumbled, even if they were unconventional. “I’m…I’m affectionate, Pierre. I’m nearly dying to—I’m just a bit touch-starved is all, I’m sorry, Sonya could explain it, poor thing, I hold on to her all the time. When I say I don’t mind if you’re close, what I mean is that…I’d like it that way. If you would.”

Pierre felt heat rising in his face and hoped his cheeks maintained the monopoly on his blood flow, rather than more…embarrassing…areas.

Slowly, barely trusting himself, he curled his arm around Natasha, feeling the warmth of her body through the bedsheet. He could just see her face silhouetted against the dim light from the window.

She smiled at him and he blessed the darkness for hiding the fact that he was blushing to the tips of his ears.

A few minutes later she rolled over again, back toward the window. “Oh, Pierre,” she breathed.

“Yes?”

“How well can you see without your glasses?”

“If the lights were on and you were facing me, I could see your face clearly, and that’s about it.”

“Here, then.” She leaned out of bed to reach for his glasses, which were sitting on his desk, then handed them to him. “Look out the window.”

“Oh…”

Alexander House was one of the tallest buildings on campus, with an excellent view of the city and the rooftops of the surrounding houses. The snow had stopped, and a full, silvery moon hung high in the sky, shining so brightly that it turned every snow-covered surface into a vast expanse of pearl.

“It’s it beautiful?” Natasha asked.

“Breathtaking. Like…” _No_ , he thought, this wasn’t the time. Was it? It was so late—early—he was so tired, he barely knew what he was saying, Natasha was here, she was so _close_ , and she’d _asked_ to be that way…

He handed his glasses back to her without finishing his sentence. She didn’t press him, and he loved her even more for it.

She snuggled closer to him and he tightened his arm around her waist.

When her breathing became slow and regular and he was almost sure she was asleep, he whispered, “You’re remarkable, Natasha,” and closed his eyes.

 

Pierre awoke to sunlight streaming through the window and something…heavy? On top of him?

 _Natasha_.

She appeared to have kicked the covers off in the middle of the night, then somehow rolled halfway onto him without waking him up. Her arms were draped over his shoulders, her face pressed against his neck.

There was no way he could move without waking her up.

He felt his face heat. “Tasha…” he murmured. “Natasha, I, uh…”

She shifted slightly, her nose tickling his neck as she nuzzled him.

Yep. _Definitely_ how he was going to die.

“Pierre…” she moaned.

He tried very, very hard not to imagine her making that sound in other contexts. He felt tears spring to his eyes, as they always did when his embarrassment reached a particularly high level. She was still asleep, she had to be, there was no way she could have said his name like that if she was even halfway awake. “Natasha—Natasha, you have to—sweetheart—”

He hadn’t meant for that last bit to come out, and it was just his luck that at that moment his felt the flutter of Natasha’s lashes as she opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” she yawned, giving a little stretch before, apparently, noticing where she was. “Oh!” she squealed, rolling off him. “Pierre, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Whoa, hey,” Pierre said, recognizing the beginning of something Natasha would worry about for days if he didn’t reassure her about it now. “You were asleep, it’s fine, it’s not—it turns out that I, uh, that I need some…affection too. Please. Tasha. Don’t worry about it. For me.”

Natasha let out a breath and returned the smile Pierre gave her.

To Pierre, the moment seemed to stretch on forever, the two of them, sitting up in bed, gazing at each other, smiling, no need to say anything, just content to be in the same space, to share warmth, to share air.

On the desk, Natasha’s phone buzzed. “Sorry, let me just—okay, alert from the school, all doorways now clear—and then something from Marya—”

“Bolkonskaya?”

“Akhrosimova—Ooh! Sonya made cookies!” She beamed at Pierre. “I’m going to get dressed and go over. Will you come? Please? It would be the perfect snow day if you did.”

In Pierre’s opinion, it already was. “Of course I will.”

He felt surer now. He still felt the need to wait, felt that things weren’t right _just yet_ , but soon, yes, he knew it was the truth.

Last night wouldn’t be the last time he held Natasha.

 


End file.
